Samuel Longhorne Clemens Biography Essay

Samuel Longhorne Clemens was born two months premature on November 30, 1835 in the small town of Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Clemens had three older brothers, two older sisters, and one younger brother. In 1839, when Clemens was about four years old, he and his family moved 35 miles east to the growing port city of Hannibal that lies along the Mississippi River. John Clemens worked as a judge while his wife Jane stayed home and took care of the children. Due to being born premature Samuel suffered from poor health and was kept indoors till age nine. He then attended a private school in Hannibal. When Samuel was 12 his father had died unexpectedly due to pneumonia because of this he was forced to leave school and get a job to help support his family. At age 13 he became a printer's apprentice at the Hannibal Courier, which paid him with a meager ration of food. Two years later,
These books are referred to classic American novels because of how truthful they were. In these books he wrote the truth about what saw and heard as a child living in Missouri. He was the first person to use the vernacular speech and was able to capture the different classes along the Mississippi River. From 1895 to 1896 Mark Twain did an around the world lecture tour, which drew huge crowds, in order to pay off debts. Today Twain is referred to as America's first celebrity due to the fact that everyone knew who he was and knew what he wrote. As he became more popular he believed he needed a public image, which is his all white suit. To keep this image he would go on book tour with his white suit and was only allowed to be photographed in his white suit. On April 21, 1910 Samuel L. Clemens passed away in Redding, Connecticut at his home, at age 74 due to a heart attack. He was buried in Elmira, New York in his wife's family